The
decisions of the provost’s past had put him in a position to negotiate almost
any minefield and always come out on top.

Excuse me,
Danny, but the “past” can’t make decisions. I think you meant, “The
decisions the provost had made.” And Danny, “almost” any minefield?
If you walk into a minefield and you DON’T find your way through it, that
means that you step on a mine and blow yourself up. Is that what you mean
by “coming out on top”? Think, Dan, thinka minefieldbombs hidden
undergroundyou DON’T want to be, er, elevated…

Still at the
beginning of the book:

As Langdon
stared into his own weary eyes, he half wondered if he might at any moment wake
up in his reading chair at home, clutching an empty martini glass and a copy of
Dead Souls, only to remind himself
that Bombay Sapphire and Gogol should never be mixed.

Um…what?
One should never read a satirical Russian novel while drinking a martini?
That makes sense…it should be gin and tonic? Waitgin and tonic are
for reading Alessandro Manzoni. Everybody knows that! Let’s seenow,
if you are reading an American humorist like Mark Twain, you should never mix
that with orange juiceha, ha, how silly some people are! Imagine reading
Mark Twain while drinking orange juice! Orwaithere’s something more
absurd! How about reading Turgenev while eating a sandwich! I am
convulsed with laughter over that one! Why, that’s as absurd as, as, as
listening to Bach at two in the afternoon! As reciting a poem by Eliot
while the dog is taking a nap! As reading Dan Brown, while breathing!

We are
still in Chapter One:

Outside his
window, hidden in the shadows of the Via Torregalli, a powerfully built woman
effortlessly unstraddled her BMW motorcycle and advanced with the intensity of
a panther stalking its prey.

“Unstraddle
that bike,” said the policeman, effortlessly writing out a ticket.

“Why should
I unstraddle it?” the powerfully built woman retorted, with the intensity of a
mule in the middle of the set of the Gunsmoke
television show, refusing to move.

“All bikes
have to be unstraddled in the shadows of the Via Torregalli,” said the
policeman, with the intensity of an oak tree whose roots delve thirty feet down
into the earth beneath a BMW factory in West Germany. “Don’t you see the
sign? ‘No un-unstraddled bikes allowed.’”

Damn cops, she thought effortlessly, with the intensity of a powerfully
built lady of the evening swearing at a cop. Always making you unstraddle!

Eyes wild
with fear, Dr. Brooks immediately spun and crouched beside her blood-soaked
colleague, searching for a pulse. Dr. Marconi coughed up a mouthful of blood,
which dribbled down his cheek across his thick beard. Then he fell limp.

Excuse me,
Danny, but what is a doctor doing searching for a pulse, while blood is gushing
out of the man’s chest? Wouldn’t that be a stupid and pointless thing to
do? Wouldn’t she be trying to stanch the wound? Wouldn’t she be
yelling for assistance? Is she still searching for a pulse while he’s
coughing? If he isn’t limp, doesn’t that mean that he is still alive?
Did he lie motionless, and then sit up for a moment before he fell limp?

“Are you all
right, are you all right, my Robespierre?” cried the tyrant’s mistress,
cradling his severed head in her hands.

Anthony Esolen is a professor of English at Providence College. His most recent book is Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child (ISI Press). He also translated Dante's Divine Comedy for Modern Library Classics.

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